This invention relates to sailboat keels.
It is known that the side forces which act on a sailboat proceeding on any course relative to the apparent wind, except directly downwind, may be overcome by hull appendages such as a keel or a centerboard. Known keel shapes, particularly in shoal draft sailboats, produce flow patterns characterized by turbulence and generated vortices, resulting in increased resistance to the forward motion of the boat.
It would be desirable to provide a sailboat keel, without need for an expensive, complex, and troublesome centerboard, which would, at the same time, provide the necessary resistance to side forces even for shoal draft boats and produce a flow pattern characterized by a decreased amount of turbulent flow and generated vortices, and which therefore would result in an increased speed of the sailboat when on the wind.